1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to blood glucose meters and, more particularly, to a dual blood glucose meter, which allows a measurement strip to be inserted into one of upper and lower ends thereof, thus considerably improving the user's convenience at the time of measuring blood glucose.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as the function and performance of electronic products are rapidly developing, many efforts have been made to improve the convenience of the use for electronic consumer products, such as home appliance.
Such a tendency is the same in the field of medical devices. For medical devices that consumers directly select and use, the convenience of use thereof has been stressed as much as the performance thereof has.
Of such medical devices, there is a blood glucose meter. As known well, the blood glucose meter is a device that allows diabetics, who require an adjustment of blood glucose, to easily measure the concentration of blood glucose in their blood.
In an early stage, blood glucose is measured using an early blood glucose meter installed at a hospital after a serum and corpuscles are separated from blood. Thereafter, there was developed a next generation technology that eliminated the needs of wiping away blood or removing blood corpuscles. The next generation technology is classified into a light intensity measurement method or an electrochemical measurement method. In the next generation technology, a measurement member, collectively called a strip, is used. In this case, the strip refers to only a measurement member used in the light intensity measurement method in the strict sense. The measurement member used in the electrochemical measurement method is referred to as a biosensor.
A light intensity measurement method is a method using the oxidation reaction of glucose by an oxidizing enzyme and a peroxidase as a basic principle. The light intensity measurement method is constructed so that the concentration of blood glucose is measured by analyzing a variation in the color of a reacted indicator. In the light intensity method, blood glucose is measured in such a way as to smear blood on the surface of reaction paper, to remove the blood after an elapse of predetermined reaction time, to place an opaque reflection plate under the reaction paper to reflect light, to radiate a certain amount of light from a light emitting means to the surface of the reaction paper and to utilize the amount of reflected light.
However, the light intensity measurement method is problematic in that accurate measurement is not achieved because reaction is not uniform in the case where the blood is removed when an actual reaction period exceeds or is short of an appropriate reaction period after the blood is smeared on the reaction paper. The light intensity measurement method is problematic in that the accurate measure of blood glucose because a difference in measured values occurs depending on the material of the reaction paper or force applied to the reaction paper when the blood is removed from the upper surface of the reaction paper to allow the light to be directly radiated to the reaction paper. Furthermore, the light intensity measurement method is problematic in that the use and change of the reaction paper is inconvenient and the number of the steps of measurement and measurement time are increased, thus decreasing the efficiency of measurement.
A method of measuring blood glucose proposed to overcome the above disadvantage is an electrochemical measurement method. This electrochemical measurement method is a method of measuring electrons involved in the process in which the oxidizing enzyme of glucose reacts with an electrode, using an electrical medium instead of a pigment source. When a blood sample is coated on the reacting layer of a measurement sensor used as a measurement sensor, blood glucose in the blood is oxidized by the oxidizing enzyme and the oxidizing enzyme is deoxidized. At this time, an electron acceptor oxidizes the oxidizing enzyme and deoxidizes itself. Accordingly, the deoxidized electron acceptor loses electrons and is electro-chemically oxidized again at an electron surface to which a certain voltage is applied. Since the amount of current generated at that time is proportional to the concentration of glucose in the blood, the concentration of the glucose in the blood is measured by measuring the amount of current.
As described above, a blood glucose meter for electrochemically measuring the concentration of blood glucose measures the blood glucose using the measurement of the amount of current, the concentration of blood glucose can be relatively correctly measured, measurement time can be reduced, and the performance of use, including the convenience of use, can be considerably improved.
The electrochemical blood glucose meter is designated by reference numeral 101 in FIG. 1, and includes a meter body 103 and a measurement strip 105 inserted into an upper end of the meter body 103. As illustrated in FIG. 1, the measurement strip 105 is provided at the upper end of the meter body 103 in view of the fact that blood is collected at the tip of a finger. Furthermore, a strip receiving hole 112 is formed at the upper end of the meter body 103. A Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel 107 is mounted on the upper portion of the front of the meter body 103 to display a measured value and various pieces of pictorial information in the form of numbers and icons. A power switch 109 and a control switch 111 are placed in the vicinity of the panel 107.
When blood glucose is measured using the blood glucose meter 101, a drop of blood is collected in such a way as to turn on the power switch 109, clean a point of a finger from which blood is collected, remove moisture, and cut the tip of the finger using a bloodletting device. Thereafter, when the measurement strip 105 is brought into contact with the drop of blood, the value of blood glucose is displayed on the display panel 107.
To measure blood glucose as described above, the tip of a finger is cut using such a bloodletting device or the like as illustrated in FIG. 2, which allows a sufficient amount of blood to be collected, but is disadvantageous in that a pain occurs at the cut point of the finger.
When blood is collected on at an inside point of a forearm to overcome the above-described problem, as illustrated in FIG. 3a, a pain is scarcely felt, but an inconvenience arises in that the meter body 103 is turned upside down and, thus, it becomes difficult to identify numbers or icons displayed on the display panel 107. In contrast, it is possible to bring the measurement strip 105 to a blood collection point 110 while holding the meter body 103 erect so as to allow the display panel 107 to be easily viewed, as shown in FIG. 3b. However, in this case, the right wrist gripping the blood glucose meter is excessively bent, which causes the inconvenience of use in view of ergonomics.